Deck Coring General Forum Forums

I have had boats with end grain balsa core and this downeaster with it's conolite... My guess is that the balsa is a better product, if done right you won't have the water migration that takes place with this stuff...the score lines make a conduit for the water to go throughout the core leading to delamination. Any of the core that I have replaced is not done with "conolite"

4.
First Mark was your 38 named HalfMoon when you bought her and if so did you buy it from a couple in Texas?

I am not sure about the balsa cored decks, these must be in boats built after 1978? by the third builders.

Leaks with water migration can come from the folowing locations as determined when we stripped all the head liner out and could see the coring. Morning Wings is #87 and cored with the conolite. Installation was sloppy and no effort was made to fill the intercises with resin during layup great tunnels for water to run. The core was replaced with a small square of plywood under the mast. Now you lnow why there is a sag at the mast. Water can enter at, front hatch hinges, samson posts, staysail and mainsail sheet pad eyes, cabin top hand rails and last but most common the jib block track.

Not to alarm anybody but with the older boats the heads have probably corroded off the heads of the hand rail holding screws and are beiing held in place by the swelling of the teak and corrosion of the screw. Big shock when you hold the screw head as you hear your wife ratcheting away below and there is no stress on the head! Originally we slit the head liner cut the glass away from the nuts and installed stained wood strips to cover the cut.

The main leak is from the jib track which you will have noticed when washing the deck is the low spot. The underside of the deck is accessible at the nav station and in the cabinet behind the stove. You will feel a hump in the inderdeck where they glassed over the screws and backing plates for the tracks. We took a Dremel with a carbide bit and cut around the hump giving asscess to what you will find is left of the aluminum backing plate. Suggest drilling holes like Capt Hook to drain out what water you can before cutting the glass out. Be prepared for a flood. We put a 100 watt bulb in area to dry the glass. Next we countersunk the old screw holes and filled with marinetex. We bought big Shaefer pad eyes to replace the track. In 40,000 miles we had never moved the blocks, lazy passage makers. Marked the location of the pad eyes at the aft location of the block on the track. Drilled the outer skin with 1/2"drill and countersink. Used a hook to remove the core to give about 1-1/2 diameter plug. Filled the holes with West and Silica. Set the pad eyes in place and drilled with a tap drill for the bolts and then tapped the holes. Installed the pad eyes in 5200 and used the Shaefer SS backng plates and elastic stop nuts. No more leaks after six months filled the void in with West fairing mixture. Roy Romine at
morningwings@hotmail.com

PS hope to be aboard in next two weeks and can take pictures as required.

5.
Halfmoon: Yes, Roy, I bought the Halfmoon from Nancy and Alan Cleveland in 1995 in Annapolis immediately after their return from a two year trip (Carribean and Europe).

Deck Leak: Miguel, in the Halfmoon we also found a big leak caused by the two jib tracks. To fix, we removed the tracks and filled with West System epoxy and drilled holes underneath to drain. The jib sheets now run through blocks attached to pad-eyes on the vertical face below the caprail. (seems to work OK).

Hand Rail Fastners: I just removed the handrails. I found the nuts in decent shape, but the screws were a bear to remove (required using an impact driver/hammer).

Mark

6.
Ahoy fellow Downeaster owners. I was able to contact Pioneer Plastics -a parent company for the Colonite. The question(s) as to the core material was answered by one Ed Graham-the company Engineer. He stated " This could possibly be the Glasspak product Conolite sold years ago. It was a scored foam panel that was used in some sort of marine applications. It was a sheet that looked and felt somewhat like Styrofoam and had parallel sets of scoring (grooves) in two different directions 90 degrees apart that allowed for the foam to bend and curve...The core should be resistant to water but it should be allowed to dry within the composite. I am not sure how to accomplish this but would hope that evaporation will take place. To function structurally, the composite also needs to be sealed up to keep this from happening."